Red Bull were left singing the praises of British teenage sensation Arvid Lindblad after a stellar Formula 1 audition. The 18-year-old drove for Red Bull in free practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix, filling in for Max Verstappen.

And he grabbed his opportunity to impress with both hands, posting the sixth fastest time of the 20 drivers on track. Lindblad’s best effort was good enough to make him the quickest of the nine rookies on track and was even faster than Yuki Tsunoda in the other Red Bull.

“The pace is there – there’s no arguing that,” smiled team principal Laurent Mekies, speaking just a few minutes after the end of that practice session. Tsunoda was two places behind Lindblad on the timesheets with a best effort just under one-tenth of a second slower than the teenager.

Lindblad is in line for a promotion to F1 next season with junior squad Racing Bulls and his performance yesterday gave his chances of landing that seat a shot in the arm. Team adviser Helmut Marko, who has significant influence over Red Bull’s driver decisions, was unprepared to give anything away.

But he was effusive in his praise for Lindblad and said: “Arvid was in a difficult situation. He was told, ‘Don’t do anything wrong, don’t crash the car.’ “He still delivered and he was the fastest rookie. His technical feedback was also very impressive. We are very happy with him. We got some answers, but I can’t tell you what the driver line-up will be. We will wait a little bit and then decide.”

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